The City of Portland would pay Washington County's Clean Water Services
$7 million for taking sewage flows from the city's long-problematic
Fanno Pump Station under the proposed terms of an updated
intergovernmental agreement.

First drafted in 1998, the agreement did not originally anticipate how defective the pump station would prove.

At least 12 sewage spills and millions of Portland dollars in repair
costs have stemmed from the property and associated sewer lines at
Southwest 86th Avenue, requiring help from Clean Water Services to take in excess flows, including almost all the Fanno flows since 2008.

The
$7 million is a retroactive payment to Clean Water Services for sewage
flows since 2008 and those expected through June 2013. By that point,
the city expects to have completed an $800,000 surge tank to help
relieve pressure at the pump and begin accepting sewage flows again, according to Bill Ryan, chief engineer for the city's Bureau of Environmental Services.

The construction of the surge tank did not happen
earlier because it was tied to the fate of a proposed second pump
station in the Garden Home neighborhood, Ryan said. That station
application was first denied by the county in 2010 and then approved in
September.

As part of the county's approval, it stipulated the
existing agreement between the jurisdictions be updated. Ryan said
negotiations had been ongoing for almost two years.

A Garden Home
resident has appealed the county's September decision at the state
land-use board. No date has been set for the appeal.

Also part of
the agreement, which will go before the Washington County Board of
Commissioners on Nov. 6, are provisions for a Citizen Advisory Committee
in the neighborhood and updated service charges.